"Her mother worked long hours. They didn't have much materially, but they had a community-neighbors who shared rice when you ran out, who watched each other's children, who showed up for births and deaths and everything in between. Now here she was in Canada with almost everything she thought she wanted materially. A safe home. Food. Enough money. And she was struggling. The voice said, "Your mother managed with so much less. What's wrong with you?""
"In Part 1, we looked at what happens when your needs go unmet for too long. Your window of tolerance gets narrower. Your body's stress response goes into overdrive. You end up snapping at your kids over tiny things, then feeling terrible about it. But knowing this doesn't make it easier to actually take care of yourself. There's something else getting in the way: guilt."
Parental burnout often appears as emotional numbness and exhaustion that sleep cannot resolve. Chronic unmet needs shrink the nervous system's window of tolerance and ramp up the body's stress response. Heightened reactivity produces irritability and snapping at children, which then triggers intense parental guilt. Guilt and comparisons to other caregivers create a shame cycle that further depletes resources and makes consistent self-care harder. Persistent exhaustion can lead to emotional distancing, causing children to internalize blame. Interrupting the cycle requires reducing shame-driven self-blame, building practical supports, and restoring realistic expectations and community support.
Read at Psychology Today
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